Hard and Harder

Yesterday was hard. Today feels hard. Four days of sobriety and I am exhausted, grumpy and frustrated. I almost did a "What the hell?" last night and dipped into my husband's beer stash in the garage.

I'm trying to figure out why last night was so difficult. It didn't turn out as planned. But life does that, I suppose. I was supposed to go to an event after work and decided to cancel because I wanted to spend time with my family. I thought we could decorate the tree, have dinner together and watch a movie.

My husband, it turns out, had a killer headache. I sent him to bed at 7, which meant it was just my daugher and me for the rest of the evening -- and that is when my urge to drink is strongest. I decided not to cook anything elaborate since I so love to drink while cooking. I rocked her while watching episode after episode of "Angelina Ballerina" on Netflix. Shoot me know.

In between the rocking and the sweet "I love yous" she says when we cuddle, I thought about that beer in the garage. Beer is not my trigger. I don't like carbonated alcohol, never really have. Finishing a full beer takes me over an hour, but it was calling me.

I was frustrated the night hadn't turned out as planned. Frustrated that my husband has debilitating headache after headache for what feels like the better part of the last three years. Now that we're managing his diabetes, his blood pressure and his moods with prescription medication, he's supposed to feel great. But he never does. We rarely spend time as a couple cultivating our relationship or even as a family with our daughter. If all three of us are home at the same time, either I go to bed early or he does -- and the other one ends up all night solo with our daughter.

Last night wasn't awful. My daughter was amenable to going to bed at 9:30 so long as she could sleep with me. We love having her in our bed so she was fast asleep before 10, as was I. Then I was up at 11, 11:30, 1:30, 3, and finally at 5 when I gave up that whole sleep thing and decided to go online.

So today is Day 4, and I'm tired and grumpy. I have a full day at the office and then a holiday party. And then it's bed so I can do it all over again tomorrow. This sucks.